Cerise: A Tale of the Last Century

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

For Louis the Fourteenth, if he might believe his household, Time was to stand still, and the Seasons brought no change. “I am the same age as everybody else,” said a courtier of seventy to his Majesty at sixty-five. “The rain of Marly does not wet one,” urged another, as an excuse for not covering his head in a shower while walking with the king. By such gross flattery was that sovereign to be duped, who believed himself a match for the whole of Europe in perceptive wisdom and diplomatic finesse.

But though powdered heads were bowing, and laced hats waving, and brocades ruffling in the great walk, swallows skimmed and darted through the shades of a green alley behind the nearest fountain, and a little girl was sitting on the grass, making daisy-chains as busily as if there were no other interest, no other occupation at Court or in the world.

Her flapping hat was thrown aside, and her head bent studiously over her work, so that the brown curls, silken and rich and thick, as a girl’s curls should be, hid all of her face but a little soft white brow. Her dimpled arms and hands moved nimbly about her task, and a pair of sturdy, well-turned legs were stuck out straight before her, as if she had established herself in her present position with a resolution not to stir till she had completed the long snowy chain that festooned already for several yards across the turf. She had just glanced in extreme content at its progress without raising her head, when a spaniel scoured by, followed at speed by a young gentleman in a page’s dress, who, skimming the level with his toe, in all the impetuous haste of boyhood, caught the great work round his ankles, and tore it into a dozen fragments as he passed.

The little girl looked up in consternation, having duly arranged her face for a howl; but she controlled her feelings, partly in surprise, partly in bashfulness, partly perhaps in gratification at the very obvious approval with which the aggressor regarded that face, while, stopping short, he begged “Mademoiselle’s pardon” with all the grand manner of the Court grafted on the natural politeness of France.

It was indeed a very pretty, and, more, a very lovable little face, with its large innocent blue eyes, its delicate peach-like cheeks, and a pair of curling ruddy lips, that, combined with her own infantine pronunciation of her baptismal name Thérèse, had already obtained for the child the familiar appellation of “Cerise.”

“Pardon, mademoiselle!” repeated the page, colouring boy-like to his temples—“Pardon! I was running so fast; I was in such a hurry—I am so awkward. I will pick you a hatful more daisies—and—and I can get you a large slice of cake this evening when the king goes out of the little supper-room to the music-hall.”

“Mademoiselle” thus adjured, rose to her full stature of some forty inches, and spreading her short stiff skirt around her with great care, replied by a stately reverence that would have done credit to an empress. Notwithstanding her dignity, however, she cast a wistful look at the broken daisy-chain, while her little red lips quivered as if a burst of tears was not far off.

The boy was down on his knees in an instant, gathering handfuls of the simple flowers, and flinging them impetuously into his hat. It was obvious that this young gentleman possessed already considerable energy of character, and judging from the flash of his bold dark eyes, a determined will of his own. His figure, though as yet unformed, was lithe, erect, and active, while his noble bearing denoted self-reliance beyond his years, and a reckless, confident disposition, such as a true pedagogue would have longed and failed to check with the high hand of coercion. In a few minutes he had collected daisies enough to fill his laced hat to the rims, and flinging himself on the turf, began stringing them together with his strong, well-shaped, sunburnt fingers. The little girl, much consoled, had reseated herself as before. It was delightful to see the chain thus lengthening by fathoms at a time, and this new friend seemed to enter heart and soul into the important work. Active sympathy soon finds its way to a child’s heart; she nestled up to his side, and shaking her curls back, looked confidingly in his face.

“I like you,” said the little woman, honestly, and without reserve. “You are good—you are polite—you make daisy-chains as well as mamma. My name’s Cerise. What’s your name?”

The page smiled, and with the smile his whole countenance grew handsome. In repose, his face was simply that of a well-looking youth enough, with a bold, saucy expression and hardy sunburned features; but when he smiled, a physiognomist watching the change would have pronounced, “That boy must be like his mother, and his mother must have been beautiful!”